(Closed)
There was something sour in the atmosphere, as if the air itself had become a bit too stale. The entire world seemed somehow thicker, as if the magic floating in Raiaera’s very air had begun to curdle with the self interested petty squabbles that defined Althanas’ ignoble strife. This was Eluriand, the city that Damon had once helped liberate. Now, the boy that had grown too old for his age just sat calmly outside of the wall to the center city, trying to ignore the thoughts of needless war that had soaked deeply into the air.
Nearby, a bard was singing.
“All things fade like the roses of May,
shriveling up in the winter’s sun.
All things change like children at play,
When their life’s work has begun.
Come December, will we remember the spring,
Things stay the same, but the people have changed,
Come December, what will the last sunrise bring,
When things stay the same, but the people have changed?”
The retired general tried to smile. The song was from the Slayer Songbook, and had been one of the songs that Damon had given to Istien University. He had come to the university only to seek a final peace.
It was a bitter irony that he would seek this peace as the rest of the continent was gearing up for war. Alerar had fought Raiaera a number of times, and in every case, neither nation had ceased to exist. Their actions brought only poison. Damon was merely an unfortunate bystander who had tried to help make Raiaera great in between the wars that tore it apart.
Now, as the city frothed at the brink of its own oblivion, Damon wondered if it had truly been worth liberating the city from the undead, only to snap out of his self-pity just enough to remember that there was still little that had been set in stone. Time itself on Althanas could always be unwritten... and since that was what the mission required, Damon was ready to go back and rewrite time.
The final chapters of his story were about to be unwritten. All the stories of the retired general were going to change, but Damon was willing to sacrifice his legacy if it meant that Eluriand might finally be saved from itself.
Now, as the young veteran waited on the brink of oblivion and ignominy, he waited with a quiet impatience for the courier to arrive. It was an anxiousness that betrayed the last remnants of the former general’s youth. A more mature warrior would have known that time stood still on the brink of the journey of a generation.